California consultant James Guthrie and his partner, James Smith, testified as a pair of state Supreme Court special masters opened a hearing on whether legislators made enough changes in Arkansas' public school system to bring it into compliance with the state constitution.

The Legislature, in a 61-day special session that began Dec. 6 and extended past a Jan. 1 deadline set by the state Supreme Court to fashion constitutional remedies, passed sweeping reforms and nearly $400 million in new taxes to pay for them.

"The enactments are dramatic and comprehensive. The amount of money that is going to be distributed as a result of them is the most I've ever seen," said Guthrie, chairman of Management Analysis & Planning Inc. "No other state has made this kind of effort."

The consultants also defended the Legislature's departure from key elements of a study it commissioned last summer to determine what constitutes an adequate education in Arkansas.

The study recommended education reforms to be phased in at an estimated cost of $847 million, including lowering class sizes in early elementary grades, a $100 million expansion of preschool and a 10 percent pay raise for teachers.

The Legislature appropriated $40 million for preschool, rejected the class-size recommendations and increased minimum teacher salaries from $21,860 to $27,500.

"I don't believe the Legislature was under any compulsion to adopt every thing a consultant recommends," Guthrie said. "They should not take it as some kind of word of God."

Smith testified he would not expect dramatic changes in student performance for five to 10 years.

"No one knows if the Legislature got it right," he said, but the ability to monitor the process annually, make modifications and corrections was "the best possible way to go about it."

The same two consultants were paid $100,000 in 2000 to testify for the Bentonville and Rogers school districts, which successfully argued that Arkansas' school funding formula was inadequate.

Their lawyer, David Matthew of Lowell, argued Monday that the state has complied the state Supreme Court order to provide equal educational opportunities for all of Arkansas' nearly 450,000 students.

The state paid Guthrie and Smith $20,000 for their testimony Monday. Smith said they were paid to evaluate the state's response to a court order, but not to tailor their testimony one way or the other.

Lawyers for the Lake View School District, the original plaintiff that challenged the equity of school funding, questioned the validity of comments by Guthrie and Smith, who acknowledged they testified on two weeks' notice and gave opinions based on their reading of legislation enacted and other documents.

Lawyers for the Little Rock and Pulaski County school districts also noted focus groups that Guthrie and Smith organized for their testimony in 2000 which determined that funding adequacy would require an average of about $5,900 per student. The new funding formula passed by the Legislature calls for $5,400 per student, plus additional funding for poverty and other special needs.

Under questioning by the Lake View lawyers, who contend the state has fallen short of the court's November 2002 edict to provide equal educational opportunities for all students, Guthrie said he couldn't predict the state's success.

State lawyer Tim Gauger, from the attorney general's office, said Arkansas had made significant progress toward improving public education.

Attorney Leon Holmes, representing Gov. Mike Huckabee separately, agreed that the Legislature had taken important steps, but he pushed the governor's position that the state could not afford costly reforms without further consolidation of schools.

"We don't want a comparison with other states. We don't want (just) significant progress," said Bill Lewellen, a former Lake View attorney who represents the class of school districts affected by the unconstitutional formula. "Either it's fully constitutional or it's not. It's not enough to go back and say 'we're getting there.' They should have been there."

The special masters said they would decide Tuesday on Lewellen's motion to hold the state in contempt for tardiness in providing computer runs on funding distributions. They also set aside March 8 to hear testimony from Lake View and other witnesses who oppose the legislative remedies.

Legislators approved the merger of administrations in districts with fewer than 350 students. Huckabee initially wanted to merge high schools in districts with fewer than 1,500 students.

Guthrie said unusually small school districts would impose a higher burden on state finances and he suggested that a high school with fewer than 300 students would be "an unusually expensive operation."

Huckabee is among those who have submitted written testimony for the two special masters to consider.